Santa = Fail

I was really excited to take Charlotte to sit on Santa's lap for her first Christmas and get a cute photo. Doug was skeptical. Well, the pictures speak for themselves (yes, we had that child screaming loudly).

Oh, and she was a happy girl before and a happy girl after (and I mean immediately after), just not while sitting on Santa's lap.

We'll try again next year & hopefully get a better result.

only 1 more month - really?!

yes, really...Charlotte's 11 months old! Only 1 more month until she's 1 whole year old! wow! She's making it harder and harder for me to snap a good picture with the fun sign, but at least I tried, huh? ok, ok, she might* have a mullet
*delete "might" from that sentence and don't tell, she gets embarrassed

Our First Texas Thanksgiving (and Charlotte's first Thanksgiving)

Since we were unable to come home for Thanksgiving this year, we had to do it right here in Texas. Afterall, it was Charlotte's first Turkey Day and I decided the time had come to cook my first turkey. We were also lucky enough to have Megan here with us, so it made it feel a little more like a holiday with family. We're so happy she was here to hang out and celebrate with us (I know if she wasn't here, I'd have been missing home much more - thanks Meg!)! We even broke out 2 bottles of the waiting-for-a-special-time-to-drink-wine we bought on our honeymoon.

We also got to see and talk to both of our families on Skype - it was great to see everyone together and chat a little.

THE MEAL:

So my first stab at cooking a turkey turned out amazingly wonderful (especially considering that I only spent $4 on my 12lb Jennie O turkey)! It was super tasty, juicy and seriously just sooo good! Additional menu items included: Susan's stuffing, Donna's greenbean casserole, my specialty sweet potatoes and some cranberry sauce/jello stuff that I forgot to put on the table - whoops. That was actually the only dinner mishap and nobody seemed to mind. Oh yeah, and of course we had gravy too, which was terrific thanks to Megan. For dessert: homemade pumpkin cheesecake. My first cheesecake too, which was also super yummy (can't go wrong with a Paula Dean recipe I guess). I'm thinking everyone enjoyed the meal because unfortunately for us, we only had about 3-4 servings of everything leftover.

Oh, and I pulled out our china of course since we were certainly celebrating the holiday and had to do it right : )

Precooked items:

The Finished Turkey - Success!CHARLOTTE'S FIRST THANKSGIVING:
It was a year for "firsts" all around: Charlotte's First Thanksgiving, I cooked my first Turkey-Day meal and Doug carved his first turkey. Charlotte LOVED having guests here to entertain her (the girl loves attention). And the food? Well, she thoroughly enjoyed her first Thanksgiving meal! She chowed down on green beans, sweet potatoes, and even stuffing and some turkey. There was a fight in our house over leftovers the next few days.

THE GUESTS:

Besides Doug, Charlotte & me, Megan was here to celebrate with us and Tony (our old realtor and friend from high school) and his girlfriend, Liz joined us for dinner. Meghan & Mark (our neighbors & good friends) joined us for the after-dinner party and dessert. It was the perfect number of guests and we all had a great time. Unfortunately, after being picture-happy as we started cooking, I kinda forgot when everyone was there.

It was certainly hard to be away from home, missing our families for Thanskgiving, but with all of the cooking, eating, drinking, eating, cleaning, eating and simply hanging out at home, we managed to have a great holiday here in Texas. We are very thankful for our friends here for celebrating with us and especially to Megan for coming down for the holiday.

One last picture...the food must've been pretty good because we had very little leftover:

Our Halloween Trip Home

Since it's just about Thanksgiving, I am feeling like quite the slacker since I haven't blogged since before Halloween. So instead of writing out a nice little story about our wonderful trip home to nky for Halloween, I'll just post our photos. Needless to say, Charlotte had a great time being a cowgirl and hanging out with her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins! And yes, it was wonderful to be home.

Oh yes, and we took her 10 month birthday pictures in the airport (she wasn't in the mood to sit still):

Our little Cowgirl (and a fall craft)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
I have been working on my first sewing project: Charlotte's Cowgirl Halloween costume. I made a vest and skirt, both complete with cowprint and fringe. Well, I finished it this week!! She already has a pink cowgirl hat from grandma and I was going to just get a simple pink onesie for underneath, but...while driving to Carter's, I noticed Shetland's Western Wear store and I quickly changed my driving destination and ran inside. I found the BEST and CUTEST cowgirl gear: a pink collared, button-down, hanky-print onesie and pink boots (and the boots were on sale!). It surely completes her outfit. I was so excited with my finds and Charlotte and I had to play dress-up today.

So here's our little Cowgirl (I had to put the second picture in so you could see her skirt and the detail of her adorable shirt): Besides Charlotte's costume, I haven't done any crafts in what seems like forever. Meghan, my great new friend and neighbor, had said she wanted a fall wreath. I quickly convinced her we could make them prettier and cheaper than she could buy one. Last Saturday night, that's just what we did. Both of our wreaths turned out great and I may have turned Meghan into a crafter :)

Happy Fall!

The Pumpkin Patch

The weather was beautiful this past weekend so we decided it was the perfect time to make our first family pumpkin patch trip. We headed to the Flower Mound Pumpkin Patch (it's about 45 min south east of our house) http://www.flowermoundpumpkinpatch.com/ ~ This place is wonderful!! They have thousands of pumpkins of all sizes, hay mazes, hayrides, a little tractor ride, bounce houses, tons of cartoon character cut-outs to take your picture with, food, and endless spots for perfect pumpkin and fall photos. And the best part? Free admission & parking! We seriously took over 250 photos (thank goodness for digital cameras) and we ended up with some great shots.
Charlotte obviously had a blast at her first pumpkin patch and so did mom & dad.
Enjoy!!

A tid-bit O Charlotte

It's been a little while since I posted solely about Charlotte, what she's doing, saying, eating etc. So here goes:

• TEETH: I noticed Tuesday morning that she has another tooth! That makes 5: 3 on botton & 2 on top. I'm thinking that may help explain her snotty nose and waking up during the night
• SLEEP: How come this little girl slept great between 2 & 5 months, but now at 9 months old she doesn't sleep through the night and hasn't since 5 months or so?? We're convinced J'Adore Yogurt is magic bc whenever she has some she sleeps all night long. My mom is convinced she's hungry and needs more to eat. Which leads to the next category....
• EAT: Charlotte is so funny, she loves to eat and will seriously eat anything we give her. Her list of current favorites: anything she can finger pinch & feed herself (bread, puffs, mum mums, crackers, black eyed peas), staple favs: sweet potatoes is still a fav, bananas, applesauce, peaches, avacadoes, pumpkin, potatoes, peas, lima beans, carrots, edamame, I could keep going bc the child eats is all. The big new one is yogurt. I swear, she can eat a full dinner and act like she's done, then I pull the yogurt out of the fridge & she'll down a cupful in what seems like seconds. She loves the stuff! J'Adore Yogurt is our new family favorite. It's a self-serve frozen yogurt place and Charlotte gets the 'no sugar added strawberry banana' - she screams for more and draws a crowd in that place, it's pretty histerical. What's also histerical is giving her a lemon or a lime when we're out to dinner. She has the perfect, classic "sour puss" face, but still goes back for more, it's good entertainment for mommy & daddy.
• PLAY: I went to a consignment sale & scored on a few new toys. They were definitely good buys! One has a mirror and plays music - I cannot stress how much Charlotte LOVES mirrors (she immediately smiles when she sees her cute face), the other is an Elmo guitar. Other than those, she loves books (especially her new Halloween ones from Grandma Millay), her nasal spray bottles, tupperware (especially at Meghan's house) and dog toys (but we do our best to keep her from chewing on those).
MOCK: The imitating has begun! She's started mocking noises, faces and things we do. She's getting good at the indian-like mouth/hand "aww", the "bliber, bliber" noise you make moving your tongue on your lips, "na, na, na" meaning no & shaking her head, saying "ma ma ma" and "da da da" and "ba ba ba". I guess it's time for mom & dad to start watching what they say and do : )
• STATS: The standing from her most recent doctor visit are as follows: weight 17lbs 6 oz (22%) height 27 1/2" (35%), head circ. not sure of the exact #, but it's 90% ---Lots of brains in that big ol head! Current high-school projections are 5'3" and 110lbs and very smart :)
• PHOTOS: enjoy! PS: I'm totally slacking on the "official" 9 month photo...I'll hopefully upload tomorrow.